Wednesday, March 13, 2013

A public service announcement for sojourners in Southern Saskatchewan:
Professor Ken Guenter will be presenting a paper on Friday as part of this year's Briercrest College and Seminary Colloquium series. The paper is entitled "Echoes of Scripture in Matthew 24:30-35: Moses and the Prophets in Jesus’ Consolation."
Here is Ken's abstract:

This article examines a portion of the Olivet Discourse to demonstrate the potential of an interpretive method that begins with Israel’s Scriptures as the primary context for a New Testament discourse. It becomes evident that within the chorus of echoes most originate in the Mosaic covenant and are subsequently developed by the Prophets. These precursor texts in both Moses and the Prophets look forward to Israel’s restoration. The harmony of these voices and ideas engenders confidence within the reader that Jesus is being heard, consoling his disciples from their Scriptures that, though their temple and city will surely be destroyed, Yahweh’s people Israel will never pass away.

This will be the last colloquium of the year, so please join us on Friday, March 15 in room S113 @ 12:30 PM if you can make it out.

Friday, March 8, 2013

We are reading N.T. Wright's Lent for Everyone: Matthew during our family Bible time this year as a way of entering into Lent and preparing for Easter. (Why is it that there are all kinds of children's resources for Christmas, but not Easter?)

The picture on the left was the result of one of our deep theological discussions last week...after I accidentally mispronounced "Herod Antipas."

Overall, however, we are all benefiting from reading Matthew, and the accompanying text is vintage Wright, which is fine. At its best it fixes the text more firmly in mind and encourages devotional reflection. One also gets a succinct and accessible version of Wright's model of Jesus in his Jewish context.

Here, for example, I think Wright nails the difference between Jesus and the Pharisees without denigrating first-century Judaism too much:

"That was the real bone of contention between Jesus and the Pharisees. They were supporting a system which, at its best, was pointing forward to God's great desire to find a purified people for himself. Jesus was claiming that God was now doing this, through him. They were setting up signposts; he claimed to offer the reality which made the signposts redundant."

About Me

But yield who will to their separation,
My object in living is to unite
My avocation and my vocation
As my two eyes make one in sight.
Only where love and need are one,
And the work is play for mortal stakes,
Is the deed ever really done
For Heaven and the future's sakes.
- Robert Frost, "Two Tramps in Mud Time"